Field of the Invention
One disclosed aspect of the embodiments relates to an information processing system, a post-processing apparatus, a control method for sheet feeding.
Description of the Related Art
Various merged documents have been conventionally generated in combination of an image forming apparatus and a post-processing apparatus under control of an information processing apparatus in the field of commercial printing. For example, a printed material subjected to the print processing by the image forming apparatus is set in the post-processing apparatus to be subjected to post-processings such as binding and cutting thereby to generate a sophisticated merged document.
With the configuration, the information processing apparatus, the image forming apparatus, and the post-processing apparatus mutually establish communication and exchange information via a network or the like. For example, the setting information on the post-processings is transferred from the information processing apparatus to the post-processing apparatus, and the post-processing apparatus reads the setting information thereby to be automatically set, and can perform the post-processings.
On the other hand, various types of sheets are used for merged documents and a large number of sheets are used at one time. Thus, a work of exchanging sheets is frequently performed in the sheet feeders (cassettes) in the image forming apparatus.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-262006 discloses an image forming apparatus for predicting when the number of sheets in each size reaches the set number of sheets depending on the use situation in the past certain period.
However, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-262006 does not consider that sheets need to be fed to the image forming apparatus on the basis of the post processings performed in a post-processing apparatus. For example, if the post-processing apparatus fails in a post-processing, the image forming apparatus may be asked to reprint the corresponding printed material in order to retry the processing in the post-processing apparatus. At this time, if sheets required to reprint are not inserted into a sheet feeder in the image forming apparatus, the sheets are lacking during the reprinting processing, and the print processing can stop. That is, if sheet feeding to the image forming apparatus is not considered on the basis of the post-processings performed by the post-processing apparatus, a merged document generation efficiency can lower.
As described above, sheet feeding based on the use situation (history) only in the image forming apparatus in the past certain period is not enough.